Grant money to boost bicycle awareness in Brockton

BROCKTON – Evelyn Folan bikes every day from her home in Avon to Brockton and back for exercise.“It’s the only recreation I can stand,” she said.

Folan, 62, will be one of many Brockton bicyclists who are set to benefit from federal safety awareness funding aimed at a dozen Massachusetts communities with high rates of car accidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists.

“It’s about time,” Folan said.

She added, jokingly, “Bicyclists don’t have any sense, and I’m one of them.”

The state Department of Transportation is spending more than $461,000 in federal highway safety funds to launch a bicycle and pedestrian safety awareness and enforcement program.

Police departments will use the money to increase enforcement. Planning agencies and transportation officials will gather data from police citations and traffic stops to identify areas that need better protections for pedestrians and bicyclists. Those areas could be streets that have poor lighting or lack crosswalks.

“It’s really exciting that Massachusetts is doing this,” said Wendy Landman, executive director of WalkBoston, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving pedestrian conditions throughout the state.

Brockton will receive $10,000, administered through the Old Colony Planning Council.

Other first-year participants include Cambridge, Fall River, Haverhill, Lynn, New Bedford, Newton, Pittsfield, Quincy, Salem, Somerville and Watertown. The Department of Transportation expects to add communities in future years.

Transportation officials said they selected the initial participating communities based on their per-capita rates of car crashes involving bicycles or pedestrians, as well as the prevalence of pedestrian and bicycle traffic in each city or town.

There were 75 pedestrian and 25 bicyclist crashes in Brockton in 2011.

“We have made safe travel regardless of transportation mode a priority, and we have work to do on many fronts,” Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey said in a statement. “We seek greater awareness among the traveling public to create a share-the-road approach and heightened enforcement of the rules of the road, and we must invest strategically in smart infrastructure choices that improve safety. This program will combine these efforts in coordination with our state, regional and local partners.”

Landman said WalkBoston and fellow nonprofit MassBike have been advocating for several years for the state to launch such a program. The two organizations plan to work with the state to develop a public awareness campaign and marketing materials.